Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1887-07-08
Z
BITTER CREEK,s BAD MAN.

Il From the San Francisco Examiner.
81 admit that lam from Bitter
Creek, q said ". Robbins at the
Russ house recently II can't help
it. was from there, and now can't
j very well ret away for keeps. Besides.
why should I? / am doing very well
There and like the place.
t.But Iget q little weary. Every
where I 60 when / put down my name
tbs fool clerk says: 5.5 .s
ss g 'Oh, aha! You're the Bad Man
from Bitter Creek, are your"
These things make me wearyl New.
to the ;diotic clerks and others per-
haps, who make the remark, but
awtully old to me. ...
You say you half supposed this
Bitter Creek, or at least the Bad Man
part OF it, to be hypothetical? Not q
4 bit OF it. Consult your map. You'll
find one Bitter Creek in Wyoming, two
in Arizona, one and possibly two in
Utah, onein Montana and one in Cali
fOrnia. Almost all are small streams
or they would be called rivers as you
may suppose.
s.Well, the genuine and historic
stream is in southwestern Montana,
and that's where hail from. Tho
creek is lilo miles long and empties
into the C!ark's Fork ofthe Columbia.
"The bad man was fellow named
Jim Yount, an exceedingly rocky in
dividual, who came there in very early
times from Tennessee. NOBODY knew
the exact date, for he was ahead of
most everybody else. He was none
OF your mild hammered sort OF men,
as Slade was represented to be.
Originally in Tennessee, I suppose he
was a Knob-hiller, and as he grew old
er he rapidly grew worse.
! upon my word, he was the most
vicious, vidictive man that l ever
heard of. He fairly earned the title.
We heard he. was a murderer in Ten.
nessee of three boys, playmates in
school whom he didn't like. He
s!oped to Missouri and knitted an old
gentleman in whose employ he was
! because the old man insisted on his
getting up at seven o'clock in the
morning.
"He blazed his way in this manner
pretty effectually to the west. One
OF his first deeds, which the pioneers
OF Montana recollect, was the shoot
ing off OF both ears ofa bullwhacker by
Jim.
"Jim saw him driving along, and re-
marked to a friend that he thought he
could make a center shot on the
transfers big ear. The friend doubt
ed it, and he let her go. He struck
the auditing apparatus plum in the
middle. Before the teamster could
clap his hand on the shot ear, whack
went ball through the other one.
/ 'The bad man then asked the bull
7 whacker if he didn't want him to pres
emit him with a, couple OF earbobs,
since he had such nice round holes to
put them in.
Ellis next deed was to burn school
house, some twenty miles away. He
claimed the children made faces at
him as he was going along one day.
and he'd be hanged if he'd have such
kids to grow up to know any more
than he did
SIN a dispute with two confeder-
ates about some stolen horses in 80,
year after his school house affair,
he killed both OF them, took all the
stock and gobbled their money. He
didn't even bury the fellows, but left
their bodies lying only fifty yards or
so from the corral.
"But his best hold was in the
saloons. He'd drink a barrel of
whisky every few days--no soft drinks
for him-whisky every time. He had
| q HI IT 20 hot
like a chrome, and his oaths and
language in general was something
frightful to hear
{" don't recollect crime in those
early days that he didn't commit.
He held up stages, stole bullion and
robbed mails with impunity. Nobody
molested him. Everybody feigned
not to know who did it, and every
body went around crinsingly asking
Jim, as they patted him OIL the back,
to take a drink. Quite often he'd get
mad at this even, and tell them to
have care how they came soldering
around him or he'd shoot the tops Of
their heads off.
"Jim played many brilliant engage
ments Of this sort around Virginia
city, in Montana, Boulder City and
other places. His Bitter Creek ranch
was only a RENDEZVOUS for him, sort
Of central point, where he and fellow
thieves rounded up their stolen
horses and CATTLE" sJim ran along
for several years in this way, cutting,
shooting and killing until he boosted
himself that two graveyards wouldn't
hold the people that he had laid
away. ..~ q "
! In 1867, however. Jim made one
/ trip too often to Helena. He had
made his record over there But the
rich placers had drawn a host of bad
men there, and one night when Jim
/ gambling dive and began to lay on
right and left he got a ball in his heart
that forever fixed him.
'''Of the crowd, though, he killed four
first and manned for life three or four
more. He was buried out in the foot
hills near Helena, and for d long time
and until it rotted away, a plain pine
board marked his grave and bore the
inscription: z5
| THE BAD MAN FROM BITTER CREEK:
aE- . ~ F
II think Jim was about forty years
old when he was rounded in. It was
q glad day for Bitter Creek and a joy
full one Tor Helena, which for q long
time boosted that it had tucked our
bad man AWAY under the naisies.
Nov, You might think that our rs-
9ion i full Of such citizens as Jim, but
it Is not So We are now, at least, Q
quiet. peaceable community, devoted
70 1anci1inp nod apriclIltIar tt wnilld y